The spring migration of baitfish (especially bunker, aka menhaden) now taking place along our mid-Atlantic coastline draws a variety of fishy predators within a convenient boat ride of our Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey marinas. While schools of big bluefish chase the baitfish through the brine, hot on the trail of the blues are numerous species of shark, especially blue shark, thresher, and mako, as they feast on their tasty finned brethren. For saltwater anglers, that makes this month primetime for a number of species of coveted game fish. Now is the most opportune time for fishermen to pursue their quarry of choice, be it striper, blue, drum fish, flounder, or shark.

Party boat captains up and down the Jersey coast reported decent catches of striped bass and bluefish this past weekend. Scattered reports also indicated good success on these two species in the surf with bluefish in the 3 to 7 pound range being landed by anglers (along with some drum fish) in south Jersey destinations like Ocean City and Cape May.

Traditionally, night trips for bluefish out of Jersey ports tend to peak this week. For a few years such a nighttime trip for blues out of Barneget Light was a part of my annual routine -- but timing was extremely critical. Back in those days we found the best fishing was always the weekend of the Belmont Stakes, slated for this Saturday. One night the action was so furious everyone aboard boated their ten fish limit in the first half hour of fishing. The next year saw the same result in just 90 minutes. But in the two years that followed when we scheduled our trip the week after the Belmont, the results were terrible. One year we boated just one bluefish on the entire boat. The next year every angler aboard was skunked and the gang that organized the annual outing was so discouraged they never scheduled another trip.

Advertisement

The word from the bluefish fleet right now is mixed with respectable catches one night and shutouts the next. Will the huge schools of big slammers show up? We’ll have to wait and see how things shape up for the coming weekend. If the inshore bluefish run is weak this season, expect the headboat captains to rely on stripers, drum, or flounder to keep their chartered anglers happy.

One old salt abandoning his inshore efforts on the erratic big blues is Captain Dick Herb who pilots his center console Escape out of Avalon, N.J. Herb told me that the flounder fishing has been phenomenal in Jersey’s back bays with a majority of keepers being caught. “I fish sea horse lures with bucktails along with straight bucktails on 8-pound test,” he revealed. “We’re catching a lot of fluke in the 20 to 21 inch range right now.”

More than a few climate change theorists suspect that the warming ocean waters are impacting the migratory patterns of fish and sparking earlier movement in the spring. For possible empirical evidence of such migratory shifts, you can cite the Ocean City, Md., Annual Shark Tournament. For many years, anglers participating in that event, traditionally held in the middle of June, had no trouble catching, releasing, and boating a decent number of mako, blue, hammerhead, and thresher sharks. “Back in the day” a steady procession of these alpha predators was brought to the tournament scale to the awe and amazement of large crowds gathered at the docks for this tourney that began back in 1981. But recent catches gradually ebbed until two years ago not a single shark was brought to the docks. Last year, ditto.

While some might point to resource depletion as a possible cause of this shark drought, that theory was challenged by the fact that anglers participating in another Ocean City Shark tournament, Mako Mania, traditionally held a week prior, still managed to hook up with good numbers of their toothy quarry. Acknowledging the shift in these migratory patterns, Ocean City Shark Tournament Director Mark Sampson, a party boat captain specializing in shark fishing who doubles as an outdoors writer, this year moved up his tournament’s dates two weeks so that it is now held at the end of May.

The results of that tourney which ended on Saturday appear to validate the climate change theorists’ claims. Moving the event two weeks up to match the earlier migration proved a boon to the eighteen participating boats. All told, 108 sharks were caught and released with 15 others brought to the tournament scales. The winning fish in the mako category was a 314 pounder caught aboard the “Sweetie” by Sean Hogan of Morganville, NJ, who took home $10,170 in prize money. In the Open Division a 346 pound Thresher shark caught aboard the “Reel Instigator” by Blake McGrath of Ocean City, MD captured $5,850.

I’ll be heading down to Ocean City Maryland’s back bays in quest of some flounder this week. I may also try my sharking luck in the Mako Mania Tournament there set for this weekend. Remember, it’s primetime for a number of finny species. No matter what your destination of choice -- the Atlantic Ocean or the Chesapeake or Delaware Bays -- there’s no better time to wet a salty line than right now.